Lifeboat Foundation

Angel provides driver and customer support. Naomi teaches high school students. But they are not humans. They’re HumAIns, artificial intelligence (AI) agents.

Designed to handle unscripted communication tasks autonomously and proactively, Angel and Naomi use human-like thought processes to lead conversations instead of merely answering questions. And they get smarter with time and experience.

Continue reading “The AI customer-support agents that can think and act like humans” »

Researchers show it’s possible to make photons that cross paths interact, paving the way for technology breakthroughs.

A research team at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) has demonstrated that it is possible to manipulate photons so that they can collide, interacting in new ways as they cross paths. Detailed in the journal Nature Physics.

As the name implies, Nature Physics is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal covering physics and is published by Nature Research. It was first published in October 2005 and its monthly coverage includes articles, letters, reviews, research highlights, news and views, commentaries, book reviews, and correspondence.

The researchers also found a spot in the brain’s temporal lobe that reacted when volunteers heard the 16th notes of the song’s guitar groove. They proposed that this particular area might be involved in our perception of rhythm.

The findings offer a first step toward creating more expressive devices to assist people who can’t speak. Over the past few years, scientists have made major breakthroughs in extracting words from the electrical signals produced by the brains of people with muscle paralysis when they attempt to speak.

But a significant amount of the information conveyed through speech comes from what linguists call “prosodic” elements, like tone — “the things that make us a lively speaker and not a robot,” Dr. Schalk said.

Imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, has presented the successful integration of a pinned photodiode structure in thin-film image sensors.

The report, published in the August 2023 edition of Nature Electronics, is titled “Thin-film image sensors with a pinned photodiode structure.” Initial results were presented at the 2023 edition of the International Image Sensors Workshop.

With the addition of a pinned-photogate and a transfer gate, the superior absorption qualities of thin-film imagers—beyond one µm wavelength—can finally be exploited, unlocking the potential of sensing light beyond the visible in a cost-efficient way.

A research team has developed an advanced aqueous zinc-ion battery with an enhanced cycle lifespan using a weak magnetic field and a new VS2 material. The breakthrough addresses the challenges of zinc dendrite growth and cathode material limitations. Credit: Mao Yunjie.

A research team at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), led by Prof. Zhao Bangchuan, developed a high-performance aqueous zinc-ion battery with ultralong cycle lifespan in a weak magnetic field.

The findings were recently published in the journal Materials Horizons.

Organizations are building resilient supply chains with a “phygital” approach, a blend of digital and physical tools. In recent years, the global supply chain has been disrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical volatility, overwhelmed legacy systems, and labor shortages. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an industrial advocacy group, warns the disruption isn’t over— NAM’s spring 2023 survey found 90% of respondents saw significant (52.5%) or partial (39%) supply chain disruption during the past two years. Just 0.5% of respondents reported no disruption at all. Digitization presents an opportunity to overcome supply chain disruption by making data flow more efficiently, using technology and data standards to break barriers between disparate systems.

“Phygital merges two worlds together, where standards provide an interoperable system of defined data structures,” says Melanie Nuce-Hilton, senior vice president of innovation and partnerships at GS1 US, a member of GS1, a global not-for-profit supply chain standards organization. “The approach is intended to deliver multiple benefits—improved supply chain visibility for traceability and inventory management, better customer experiences across online and offline interactions, and the potential for better circularity and waste reduction by maintaining linkages between products and their data throughout their lifecycle,” she says.

An innovative microscopy technique bridges the gap between field of view and resolution.

The innovative tweak will allow scientists to directly observe molecular behavior over a much longer period, opening a window onto pivotal biological processes like cell division.

“The living cell is a busy place with proteins bustling here and there,” explains University of Michigan biomedical engineer Guangjie Cui. “Our superresolution is very attractive for viewing these dynamic activities.”

Meet the kitchen robot that can prepare a chicken Caesar salad, spaghetti Bolognese, teriyaki steak, chicken penne alfredo, all at the same time.

And then it does the washing up.

Continue reading “Kitchen Robot Gives Chef Four Extra Pairs Of Hands” »